Lipase-Catalyzed Production of 6-O-cinnamoyl-sorbitol from D-sorbitol and Cinnamic Acid Esters

Structural features, temperature adaptation and industrial applications of microbial lipases from psychrophilic, mesophilic and thermophilic origins

Microbial lipases are very prominent biocatalysts because of their ability to catalyze a wide variety of reactions in aqueous and non-aqueous media. Here microbial lipases from different origins (psychrophiles, mesophiles, and thermophiles) have been reviewed. This review emphasizes an update of structural diversity in temperature adaptation and industrial applications, of psychrophilic, mesophilic, and thermophilic lipases. The microbial origins of lipases are logically dynamic, proficient, and also have an extensive range of industrial uses with the manufacturing of altered molecules. It is therefore of interest to understand the molecular mechanisms of adaptation to temperature in occurring lipases. However, lipases from extremophiles (psychrophiles, and thermophiles) are widely used to design biotransformation reactions with higher yields, fewer byproducts, or useful side products and have been predicted to catalyze those reactions also, which otherwise are not possible with the mesophilic lipases. Lipases as a multipurpose biological catalyst have given a favorable vision in meeting the needs of several industries such as biodiesel, foods, and drinks, leather, textile, detergents, pharmaceuticals, and medicals.

A Valuable Product of Microbial Cell Factories: Microbial Lipase

As a powerful factory, microbial cells produce a variety of enzymes, such as lipase. Lipase has a wide range of actions and participates in multiple reactions, and they can catalyze the hydrolysis of triacylglycerol into its component free fatty acids and glycerol backbone. Lipase exists widely in nature, most prominently in plants, animals and microorganisms, among which microorganisms are the most important source of lipase. Microbial lipases have been adapted for numerous industrial applications due to their substrate specificity, heterogeneous patterns of expression and versatility (i.e., capacity to catalyze reactions at the extremes of pH and temperature as well as in the presence of metal ions and organic solvents). Now they have been introduced into applications involving the production and processing of food, pharmaceutics, paper making, detergents, biodiesel fuels, and so on. In this mini-review, we will focus on the most up-to-date research on microbial lipases and their commercial and industrial applications. We will also discuss and predict future applications of these important technologies.

Main Structural Targets for Engineering Lipase Substrate Specificity

Microbial lipases represent one of the most important groups of biotechnological biocatalysts. However, the high-level production of lipases requires an understanding of the molecular mechanisms of gene expression, folding, and secretion processes. Stable, selective, and productive lipase is essential for modern chemical industries, as most lipases cannot work in different process conditions. However, the screening and isolation of a new lipase with desired and specific properties would be time consuming, and costly, so researchers typically modify an available lipase with a certain potential for minimizing cost. Improving enzyme properties is associated with altering the enzymatic structure by changing one or several amino acids in the protein sequence. This review detailed the main sources, classification, structural properties, and mutagenic approaches, such as rational design (site direct mutagenesis, iterative saturation mutagenesis) and direct evolution (error prone PCR, DNA shuffling), for achieving modification goals. Here, both techniques were reviewed, with different results for lipase engineering, with a particular focus on improving or changing lipase specificity. Changing the amino acid sequences of the binding pocket or lid region of the lipase led to remarkable enzyme substrate specificity and enantioselectivity improvement. Site-directed mutagenesis is one of the appropriate methods to alter the enzyme sequence, as compared to random mutagenesis, such as error-prone PCR. This contribution has summarized and evaluated several experimental studies on modifying the substrate specificity of lipases.

Lipases: Sources, Production, Purification, and Applications

Background and Sources: Lipase enzyme is a naturally occurring enzyme found in the stomach and pancreatic juice. Its function is to digest fats and lipids, helping to maintain correct gallbladder function. Lipase is the one such widely used and versatile enzyme. These enzymes are obtained from animals, plants and as well as from several microorganisms and are sufficiently stable. These are considered as nature's catalysts, but commercially, only microbial lipases are being used significantly. Applications: They found enormous application in the industries of fat and oil processing, oleochemical industry, food industry, detergents, pulp and paper industry, detergents, environment management, tea processing, biosensors and cosmetics and perfumery. Various recent patents related to lipases have been revised in this review. Conclusion: Lipases are very peculiar as they have the ability to hydrolyse fats into fatty acids and glycerols at the water-lipid interface and can reverse the reaction in non-aqueous media. This natural ability makes it the most widely used enzyme in various industrial applications. This article deals with the immense versatility of lipase enzymes along with the recent advancements done in the various fields related to their purification and mass production in industries.